Visit Maldives commences a joint marketing campaign with ‘Let’s Go Tours’ to promote Maldives as one of the safest and preferred destinations throughout the Swiss market. Starting in April until June 2021, the campaign includes marketing activities on both online and offline platforms targeting Swiss travel enthusiasts and travel trade.
Let’s Go Tours will host a ‘Virtual Direct Customer Event’ on 29th April 2021 as the first activity, showcasing Maldives to an audience consisting of about 150-200 people from the Swiss travel trade. In addition, Maldives will be featured on monthly and exclusive newsletters reaching over 1,900 travel trade contacts and 8,500 private client contacts. Social media posts showcasing the beauty of the destination will also be posted on Instagram and Facebook with an outdoor advertisement planned for 6 months. The advertisement will be placed on public transportation in the city of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, reaching approximately 82,000 people.
With over 26 years of experience and a loyal customer base, Let’s Go Tours is one of the leading and specialized upmarket tour operators for its destinations specialising in Africa, Arabia and the Indian Ocean.
In line with the strategies of Visit Maldives, the campaign with Let’s Go Tours promotes Maldives in the Swiss market through ambient brand advertising, focused advertising and promotion of individual products and experiences. Several other activities are in the pipeline for the Swiss market including print and digital media advertising, joint campaigns with stakeholders, familiarization trips, destination e-learning and media events.
As of February 2021, Switzerland is ranked in the 8th position of the highest performing markets to Maldives with a 2.7% of the market share. Travelers from Switzerland are able to travel directly to Maldives from Zurich via Edelweiss airline. Maldives has welcomed a total of 5,189 arrivals from Switzerland and the country remains a key focus market in the recovery of tourism in Maldives. In total, Maldives have welcomed over 350,388 tourist arrivals in 2021 so far.
Maldives reopened its borders for tourists of all nationalities on 15th July 2020, with rigorous procedures in place to ensure the safety of tourists and tourism workers. Tourists are required to fill an online health declaration form within 24 hours prior to their departure, as well as have a negative PCR test result, conducted 96 hours prior to their departure.
On 1st February 2021, Maldives initiated the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the government aims to provide free COVID-19 vaccine to all citizens and residents of Maldives in the upcoming months. In this regard, the Ministry of Tourism also launched an initiative to vaccinate people in the tourism sector to develop an even safer scenario for the industry. As of 24th April 2021, 291,227 people in the Maldives have received the first dose of the vaccine with 76,923 receiving the second dose. 90% of the workers in the tourism industry of the Maldives have also been administered the first dose of the vaccine. The initiation of the vaccination drive is bound to offer hope to the local population, as well as ensure the safety of tourists. This conveys the message that Maldives is a safe destination for travelers and will hopefully generate a surge in tourist arrivals.
